A former South African ambassador to Israel has invited the fury of the
Israeli government by describing its treatment of the country's Palestinian
Bedouin community as akin to apartheid.

Ismail Coovadia told pro-Palestinian activists that he had rejected the gift of 18 trees planted in his name by the Israeli foreign ministry on his departure in 2012 as they were to be planted on "stolen" land.

"I have supported the struggle against Apartheid South Africa and now I cannot be a proponent of what I have witnessed in Israel, and that is, a replication of Apartheid!" Mr Coovadia wrote in a letter, first published in South African media outlets last week.

Mr Coovadia was presented with a Jewish National Fund certificate for trees in the Ambassadors' Forest in the Negev desert on land appropriated from the Palestinian Bedouin village of al-Araqib in 2010. A protest encampment erected on the site of the evacuated village that Mr Coovadia visited shortly before his departure from Israel, was demolished for the 52nd time in three years on Wednesday morning.

Yigal Palmor, spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, dismissed Mr Coovadia's statement as "uncouth" and claimed that his current views are "diametrically opposed" to those he expressed during his three years of service in Israel.

"This was nothing but a particularly disharmonious blow of the vuvuzela. And if someone blows that horn very hard, what can you do but turn your head away and feel embarrassed for that person."

Mr Palmor added that the South African embassy in Tel Aviv had been deeply embarrassed by the incident.

Palestinian Bedouin represent almost a third of the population of Israel's southern Negev region, claim ancestral fights to less than 5% of its region's land. Under pending legislation, passed in 2012 known as the Prawer Plan, 70,000 Bedouin currently living here face forcible displacement from 35 villages that Israel has refused to recognise. Concurrently, the JNF is using foreign donations to plant millions of trees over swathes of strategic land claimed by these Palestinian communities.

Dr Tahbet Abu Rass, director of Palestinian rights group Adalah in the Negev, was among several campaigners who welcomed Mr Coovadia's statement.

"We all love trees, we would also love to see the Negev green, but the fact they are planning trees on land claimed by Bedouin is a political statement. We are happy the ex ambassador has spoken out on this issue and hope others follow suit," Dr Abu Rass said.